


from you i have been absent in the spring

by dorenamryn



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Introspection, M/M, Post Remire Village, Pre-Time Skip
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-11
Updated: 2020-02-11
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:28:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22664017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dorenamryn/pseuds/dorenamryn
Summary: “You’re still the beast I know you to be.”“You are not wrong,” Dimitri tells him. Looks down, the crest of his head alight with silver, voice uneven, “I am trying.”or: Felix finds him in the training yard, in the silence of the night.
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Felix Hugo Fraldarius
Kudos: 66





	from you i have been absent in the spring

Remire, despite their preparations, becomes a bloodbath.

And yet, all Felix can remember after the fact is the cold glint in Dimitri’s eyes and the lump settled in the back of his throat, cold companion to the tightness in his chest and the growing void within his heart.

He is numb, unbearably so, fingers absent of warmth where they're clenched around his reins as they ride back to Garreg Mach. The ruthless swing of Dimitri’s lance is all that flashes through his mind’s eye, a damning reminder of the things he’s lost. It makes him sick to his stomach, and leaves him as hollow as the glassiness of Dimitri’s gaze, digging another nail into his battered heart.

It is no wonder that he cannot sleep. He is not the only one.

Upon reaching the training yard, he finds that it is already occupied. Dimitri stands at the other side of the open space, surrounded by moonlight. Felix halts, still cloaked in shadow, still hiding from that which he does not want to see.

Dimitri, attentive as always, hears him anyway. Face illuminated by surprise, his blue eyes narrow to see in the dark. “Is that you, Felix?”

Felix steps forward. The silence is heavy between them.

They’re at odds, not for the first time, standing at opposing sides of the training yard, moonlight filtering through sullen clouds. The memory of the battle rears its ugly head in the form of their collective sleeplessness, the aftermath manifesting as the tension in Felix’s shoulders, and in the faded blood on Dimitri’s cloak.

“You’re still the beast I know you to be.”

“You are not wrong,” Dimitri tells him. Looks down, the crest of his head alight with silver, voice uneven, “I am trying.”

“Not hard enough.” It’s harsh, a cold declaration. Hard-hitting, gutting, stern. Felix is immovable. Dimitri shuts his eyes, hands coming up to wrap around himself, the mantle of prince slipping off his weary shoulders, if only for a moment.

“I am trying, Felix,” he breathes, shoulders hunching, looking small, so small— “Trying to be the man you wish I was. Though I know that I have changed in your eyes, I myself cannot see how. I am blind, groping through shadows I cannot touch.”

Felix steps forward, once, his heart hammering at the anguish slipping through Dimitri’s words. Perhaps it is because it is so late, and he is so tired, that he thinks, perhaps, that Dimitri’s words are genuine. Perhaps, and it is only here and now that he allows himself to consider, perhaps this is his Dimitri, standing before him as a pale spectre because that is his true nature, not just a trick of the light. He steps forward.

“You—” he starts, cuts himself off, fists clenched, shoulders shaking with a pain he cannot decipher. Takes a breath. Continues, even as the words catch in his throat. “You must know.”

Dimitri looks so helpless. So small, in the dim light. Felix doesn’t have to reach far to grasp the memory of his younger form, long hair framing scattered, terrified eyes. He steps forward. Hears it as something in him snaps, the last of his weakened inhibitions collapsing as the tide of longing overflows—Longing, bitter and hopeful, for days long past; for the friend he never thought he’d lose, for the man he would have undoubtedly grown to love. He steps forward.

“I do not,” Dimitri whispers, quiet, the stone arches carrying his admission all the way to Felix, who wants nothing more than to stamp it into the dusty ground and never speak of it again. To Felix, who, heart torn, takes it within the palms of his hands and presses it to his chest, as he were formulating a prayer.

“You must know,” he repeats, numbly. Dimitri must know, for that would make the pain coursing through him easier to bear, if only slightly. He needs to know; otherwise, the walls Felix built up would have been for nothing, less than nothing because _Dimitri_ —Dimitri is a fool, and he does not know.

Cannot see the same way as Felix does. Cannot glimpse the hint of madness that becomes more prominent with every battle they are forced to fight, nor the devastating emptiness reflected in his smile. Felix clutches at his chest, as if that would stop the carefully constructed fortress erected in his heart from completely breaking apart. It is a futile effort. He steps forward.

“I am sorry, Felix,” Dimitri says, voice rich with sincerity, pale form seemingly flickering as he trembles. Felix steps forward—nearly within arm’s reach, now—and averts his gaze.

There’s something sharp in the space behind his ribcage, an itch he cannot get at, heartache he cannot reach. Dimitri is apologizing, when he has no right to do so. Dimitri is apologizing, when the vast divide between them is nothing but Felix’s own fault.

It is not a new realization, that Dimitri is a better man than he.

Felix steps forward. Does not raise his eyes, but raises an arm, instead. Inhales sharply at the frigid cold seeping through Dimitri’s cape, lips twisting as his other palm lies flat against Dimitri’s trembling chest.

“I am sorry,” Dimitri repeats, head bowed, voice raw and scratched like the scrape of a whetstone used one too many times on the same, sharpened sword, something akin to grief echoing in his tone. Felix, addled by the weariness in his bones and the moonlight shimmering across Dimitri’s porcelain-pale skin, sags, forehead coming to rest against Dimitri’s collarbones, sheltered by the freezing, metal clasp of his cape. Closes his eyes, breathes in, once, and settles.

If his eyes are closed, he can pretend that nothing has happened between them, that this is nothing but a dream thought up by a child who had not yet seen war. Briefly, he can pretend that this Dimitri is the one he remembers, the one he is searching for, the one he will never find. For a moment, everything is right again.

The illusion shatters when Dimitri’s palm meets his shoulder, and yet, despite the horrific terror coursing through his veins, the yearning he holds for the Dimitri he wants at his side wins out, and he does not flinch away. Forces himself into stillness, even as ice forms beneath the featherlight touch of Dimitri’s gloved fingertips.

“I cannot comprehend you,” Felix confides to Dimitri’s chest, words stuttering as his will fights against their escape. “I am the only one who sees you as the boar you are, and yet, I cannot tear myself away.”

Dimitri brings his other hand to meet the first. There is something deeper in the gentleness of his caress, a path which Felix refuses to see through to its end. A path he cannot contemplate if he wants to remain at the impasse he’s fashioned himself. Dimitri breathes in, and Felix feels every minuscule movement of his chest under his palm as if it were his own. He squeezes his eyes shut.

“Felix,” Dimitri says, reverent, bringing a hand to rest alongside his cheekbone, thumb swiping beneath his right eye, the leather coming away slightly dampened. “Felix.”

Felix’s heart aches more than ever, and it takes everything he has to restrain the ugly, hiccuping sob building in his chest. His tears fall freely in the meantime, eyes suddenly blown wide in comical disbelief as Dimitri tugs him close. Dimitri’s breath is warm on the skin of his neck, his hands an anchor to the suddenly unbalanced ground.

His knees buckle, a strangled sound halfway between a whine and a sob pushing past his lips, unbidden. Dimitri sinks with him, a steady presence in the face of his imminent collapse, and he wants to laugh at the absurdity of it all. It is Dimitri who is meant to be unhinged. Dimitri, who is meant to be mad. And yet, it is Felix’s knees that hit the frozen earth first, Felix’s hands that are bunched in the rough fabric of Dimitri’s uniform as if gripping a lifeline. While it is Dimitri who is meant to be falling, it is Felix who is falling apart.

It is worse because Dimitri is gentle. His hands, so strong, concealing unimaginable, uncontrollable power, are not weapons here, but comfort. Comfort, that Felix can hardly bear but freely takes, because he is weak when it comes to Dimitri. Weak, and selfish, allowing himself to be held, promising his own heart that it is just this once, and not a single instance more. Swears it, because this is all be can possibly live with.

Dimitri presses his lips to Felix’s forehead, the action both mortifying and mortifyingly kind. It is not the level Dimitri should be stooping to, as prince. Rather, it should be Felix who kneels, pressing his lips to Dimitri’s hand, because he is meant to be king and Felix is meant to serve, protect. He does not stop him. It is everything he has ever wanted and unbearably revolting in equal parts.

And yet, despite it all, he stays. It goes without saying that he will always stay.

**Author's Note:**

> so, the dmfx braincell? held me captive. title is from shakespeare's sonnet 98.
> 
> thank you for reading! check out my art over on [twitter](https://twitter.com/eznochi) :’)


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